Abstract
Frege’s extensional approach to reference affected his understanding of ontology in two ways: 1) it minimized the importance of his distinction between the complete being of objects and the incomplete being of concepts, and 2) it obscured the role of senses as “modes of presentation,” by making it impossible to regard concepts as senses. Let us first situate the analytic interpretation of ontology within its historical context, next review Frege’s comments on the being of concepts and objects more in detail, then discuss the levelling effect of his extensional approach to reference, and finally consider how that approach encouraged reductive interpretations of the meaning of ‘being’.
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Notes
Francis Bacon, On the Dignity and Advancement of Learning, ed. W.A. Wright (London, 1900), III, pp. 2–4.
Christian Wolff, Philosophia Prima sive Ontologia, ed. J. Ecole ( Hildesheim: Olms, (1962).
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy ( New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960 ), pp. 201–2.
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William Vallicella, “A Critique of the Quantificational Account of Existence,” The Thomist, XLVII (1983), 250–261.
Willard v.O. Quine, “A Logistical Approach to the Ontological Problem,” in The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays, revised ed. ( Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1976 ), p. 198.
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© 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Cobb-Stevens, R. (1990). On What There Is. In: Husserl and Analytic Philosophy. Phaenomenologica, vol 116. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1888-7_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1888-7_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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